Today in the final catwalk Madrid will greet Fabio Aru winner of the Vuelta. Even cycling takes a lot of his, after the fantastic all-blue final between Pennetta and Vinci at the US Open tennis in New York, to gild even more the triumphal weekend of Italian sport.
On the last two mountains in the Cordillera of Madrid, the Vuelta experienced the decisive moment, when about 50 km from the arrival of Cercedilla, on the ascent to Puerto de la Morcuera, Aru and Astana concerted the spurt that demolished Tom Dumoulin , the Dutchman in the jersey who seemed to be the master of the race after the extraordinary time trial in Burgos and after those three additional seconds earned with Friday's peremptory stretch on the cobblestones of the finish in Avila.
For Dumoulin, the last ascent to Puerto de Cotos was an ordeal, alone without a companion to help him, indeed closely followed by a follower from Aru, the Kazakh Zeits, who acted as a brake, with the gap growing from kilometer to kilometre. after that in the descent from Morcuera the former red jersey had the illusion of being able to recapture the squad of Aru, Landa, Quintana, Rodriguez, Maika and Chaves. But when only a handful of seconds divided him so much that Dumoulin was chasing them on sight, Astana triggered the tactic to inflict the knock-out blow on him, also stopping Luis Leon Sanchez and Zeits to finish off the decisive action – who were ahead in the breakaway immediately after the start with about thirty riders from which Ruben Plaza came out 124 km from the finish, winner of the stage after a long solitary ride.
Dumoulin, who had closed up to 10” behind, went haywire: suddenly drained of all energy he drifted, arriving together with Valverde – also in crisis – over 7 minutes from Plaza and 3'52” from Aru. Dumoulin in one fell swoop lost not only the red jersey but also the podium area, plummeting to sixth place in the standings 3'40” behind the winner of the Vuelta. Joaquim Rodriguez also benefited from the collapse of Dumoulin, who climbed to second place and Rafa Maika third, author of a long draw with Quintana on Puerto de Cotos in an attempt to steal Purito's second place. Immediately after the arrival, the joy of a triumph exploded for Aru, as beautiful as it was suffered, which throughout the Vuelta was one step away from taking place but which seemed to escape him for a few seconds. A collective joy shared with teammates and with the whole family, parents and girlfriend who came from Sardinia to be close to him in the decisive stage. For the twenty-five year old from Sardinia, a feat to be framed after the good second place in the Giro behind Contador.
By winning the 70th edition of the Vuelta, he is the sixth Italian to triumph in the great Spanish stage race after Angelo Conterno (1956), Felice Gimondi (1968), Giovanni Battaglin (1981), Marco Giovannetti (1990) and Vincenzo Nibali (2010).
